read that. I think they tally up the 3 best results out of 6 tournaments, and they use that score to determine the final results on who makes it into the playoffs. Does anyone know if they actually win anything for getting top 3 in any of these tournaments? Any cash prizes or something more than just points for the Grand Prix Cycle? Any guaranteed invites etc to other invite only super tourneys?

Interesting that the top 3, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik AND Anand chose not to participate. Oh well. We still get to see them in London. And eventually we'll see one of them take on Anand(not out of Carlsen/Aronian/Kramnik though).

How does Kramnik/Carlsen/Aronian expect to have a match with Anand or the WC in future? Why give up on this cycle? What are they holding out for..?

shivasuri4: <ex0duz>, Carlsen will almost certainly get through to the Candidates tournament via the rating spots. Perhaps Aronian and Kramnik too. Even if any of them don't get in via rating, they'll probably get the FIDE President nominee's spot.

It seems that this format will remain in place for the 2014 cycle as well. This GP series will put 2 GMs to that tourney (1st & 2nd place). The rest of the field probably will be determined via the KO world cup and based on ratings. So Kramnik, Carlsen, Aronian have enough chances to qualify. At this stage we can't say that they choose to sit out the 2014 cycle.

Method B: <shivasuri4> So it's 2 players from the GP series; 3 from the World Cup; 1 for the loser of the 2013 world championship match. It leaves two spots based on ratings or one each of rating and of FIDE nominee.

In general it is a good enough system for me. One slight improvement would be a 6-8 games match between the no.1 and no.2 finished player of the candidates tournament (giving there the no.1 guy drawing odds but still a fair chance to the no.2 to balance out the disadvantages of a tourney format).

Refused: <Interesting that the top 3, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik AND Anand chose not to participate. Oh well. We still get to see them in London. And eventually we'll see one of them take on Anand(not out of Carlsen/Aronian/Kramnik though).>

For Anand participating in the GP series would make no sense anyhow. Since it is part of the qualification process to see who gets to challenge him.
Aronian, Kramnik and Carlsen are qualified thanks to their ratings anyway. If we assume that Aronian, Carlsen or Kramnik get to play Anand, their chances to qualify increase even more.

The Grand Prix series is just a way to avoid the World Cup and the risk of getting busted there (ask Karjakin about it).
I guess we will see Kamsky, Nakamura, Grischuk and Svidler among others at the World Cup again. Grischuk will have a good chance to qualify from the world cup again, because the format with Blitz tie breaks favors him a bit. But playing a knock out competition with guys like Andreikin around, who were not at the grand prix is the way riskier road, compared to play 4 tournaments.

ex0duz: So Carlsen is basically qualified based on his untouchable rating? When is the cut off date and which ratings will they use to determine if you make it or not?

And what do they usually use to determine the 'organizers nominee'? That seems kind of random to say the least. Surely they aren't going to nominate some 'patzer' from their home federation or something? Ie Kasimzhanov(he had a decent tourney, but i doubt he's WC match material and Anand would stomp him), Loek van Wely etc.. lol

csmath: <I wouldn't even say Ding is better, because if one of those games went Wang Hao's way, it would be 3-3 and even now..>

?
If one of those 2 games went Liren's way it would have been 5-1.

Half empty glass is also half full.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out Ding Liren is reigning Chinese champion. He was a dominant 2011 champion in China as well. Thus we are talking about extraordinary player that is not yet known on the west. He is only 20 years old.

notyetagm: <csmath: ... Anyway, I just wanted to point out Ding Liren is reigning Chinese champion. He was a dominant 2011 champion in China as well. Thus we are talking about extraordinary player that is not yet known on the west. He is only 20 years old.>

I am a huge fan of <CHINESE CHESS> and Ding Liren is the real deal. Leko(!) said he is a genius, or something like that.

It's just too bad he did not win the World Junior Championship this year, then he would be getting a lot more coverage. He simply drew too many games (+6 =7) and finished 1/2-point behind the leaders.

arunjangity3: Excellent showing by Kasimdzhanov, even though he finished behind the winners. Despite being the only sub-2700 player, he was the only one without a loss, and stands to gain 14 rating points.

messachess: One point separating the top 9 players: I think that it has been since Kasparov and Karpov that a player dominated significantly, each in their own era. Before that, Fischer. There have been very few since Steinitz started it all (or was Anderson dominant? Certainly Morphy.)

dumbgai: <messachess> Yeah, it's been some years since a single player completely tore through the rest of the top players. The most recent one was Kasparov in the early 2000s, when he won many consecutive super tournaments.

Kramnik went through some slumps during his championship reign (including some due to his health problems), and still has never been rated number 1 (not counting ties) on the Elo list (!). Topalov showed some remarkable form in 2004-06 but couldn't sustain it for long, and has really been in a slump since about 2010. Anand has been great in world championship events but really struggled in tournament play in the last few years. Carlsen has a good chance to have a very dominant career though.

HeMateMe: Geez, Gata Kamsky got pounded this tournament, lost five games. Must have been something in the water. He was soo close to being the candidate to take on Anand. I think he lost it by tiebreaks.

FSR: <HeMateMe: Geez, Gata Kamsky got pounded this tournament, lost five games. Must have been something in the water. He was soo close to being the candidate to take on Anand. I think he lost it by tiebreaks.>

Gelfand, who <did> take on Anand, didn't do much better here. Even great players have some bad tournaments; I wouldn't ascribe too much significance to it.

HeMateMe: You're right, it was just a bad moment for GK. The fact that he was a semi finalist in the WC last year, says it all. He may have been a last minute replacement for someone else in this tournament. I heard someone dropped out just a week before the tournament was going to begin.

The more things change the more they stay the same? I think Kamsky was playing Karpov in the semis of the FIDE world championship, at age 17, just about 20 years ago. Such a huge run of chess talent/consistency.

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